About Us

"Wings of Care" - Kanfei Chesed Inc, established in March 2000, is a voluntary not-for-profit organization consisting of a committee of enthusiastic members of the Jewish community in Melbourne, dedicated to helping the plight of people with a mental illness and their families.
We aim for the highest level of professionalism in our service provision, and endeavour to practise the greatest form of Chesed (Kindness) in our attitude towards the care of our clients. The backgrounds of those in our administration range from rabbis, psychiatrists, counsellors, psychologists, and social workers to consumers.

Our 'friendly visiting' is performed by two sectors of the community - rabbis, and our professionally trained volunteers. Our volunteers undergo a six-week, once a week, two hours a night, training program by mental health professionals. Visits are made to people in psychiatric wards of hospitals when it is requested or agreed upon. We put fliers on hospital notice boards and clinics asking Jewish clients who want to be visited to contact us. We also have fliers in synagogues for 'word of mouth' referrals. Confidentiality is maintained at all times between volunteers and their clients. Clients do not stay in hospital long these days, so visiting them adequately involves 'home' visits as well. We find this useful in assisting rehabilitation. Our volunteers are trained for most situations that may arise. If any difficulty presents itself, a volunteer may contact one of our readily accessible professional support people.

A person who has become mentally ill may be fearful and feel isolated and in need of the extra care and attention which a friendly visitor can give. Our visitors are now providing a slightly different service due to an increasing need by consumers - to help people cope and be more motivated to cook, shop and do more organizational jobs for themselves. Some of our volunteers now spend time visiting clients on a weekly basis to provide this service.

Families of people with mental health problems and sometimes their friends need support also. It was with this in mind that we started to operate a help-line for consumers, family members and/or friends from 9:00am - 5:00pm Monday to Thursday, 9:00am - 3:00pm Fridays, and Sundays 1:30pm - 5:00 pm. For urgent attention after-hours assistance including public holidays is available. Through the helpline we offer referrals, valuable resource information, professional help where needed, and/or simply someone to listen to callers' concerns.

A professionally run Carer Support Group for family members of people with a mental illness is now available. This group benefits, as does our ERA program, from a Creative Psychotherapist using Psychophonetics. This carer group is 'open' (you may enter it at any given time) and on-going, and is available to suitable participants.

Educational awareness activities have previously taken place by Wings of Care in different ways for different groups within the organization. Professional development has been available for volunteers, outreach education has been made available to the public, and our carer support group members have also received educational information. Most of our educational awareness activities now take place in the Social Justice Committee forums. (See below)

A mutual support group formed quite early in Wings of Care's developing service provision. It was available to clients facilitated by an occupational therapist and operating on a "buddy" system. At one of our Mutual Support sessions in those early days, it was proposed that we start a consumer website. With help from a volunteer from Vicnet this was put together and operates very successfully making contact with Jewish consumers locally and overseas with a chat room and message-board. Our clients provide all the creative work in it and also information about mental illnesses and medication. One of our projects was to hold an art and creative writing exhibition on the website, for the month of Cheshvan (November) -Jewish Social Action Month This latter was the brainchild of a Rabbi Melchior who is Chief Rabbi of Belgium and a member of the Knesset with an involvement with Diaspora Jews.

An Educational and Recreational Activities program (ERA) was formed to support rehabilitation needs for clients and includes such topics as traditional art, Jewish studies and creative writing as the core activities. Other activities such as yoga human relations workshops, mental health and nutrition, computer studies, time management, anger management, emotional eating, budgeting, a de-clutter program, and getting back into the workplace are some of the other programs offered currently. A Doctor's referral is required by clients to attend the ERA program.

Wings of Care joined with 8 other mental health organizations in the Jewish community in 2002 to form the Jewish Mental Health Network (Vic) for the ultimate benefit of the community. We have launched our newsletter being one of the aims of the Network and have already published many issues. We will have it available on the website from now on. The targeted readership includes consumers, the wider community, mental health professionals and medical practitioners.
We have a drop-in arrangement functioning every Sunday from 2:00pm - 5:00pm at which our occupational therapist specializing in mental illness provides sessions, skilfully work-shopped, on a variety of the social and other topics listed above from our extended ERA rehabilitation program. - or sometimes we may simply go for a walk!

We provide conference calls every Wednesday afternoon between 2:00pm and 3:00pm. to bring clients into social contact with each other without them having to make the effort to leave their homes. This is a popular activity enjoyed by those who participate.

One of our goals is to inform mainstream mental health professionals on how to look after Jewish patients by providing a manual (please email us if you would like a copy) and regular public seminars.

A Jewish Day School's project is being worked on currently called Challenge Day. It is American and is being shown to the Jewish Day Schools as an exercise in favourably changing children's' attitudes towards each other, creating an environment of tolerance and respect, and developing and fostering leadership qualities.

We have now launched our Wings of Care website which will link in with the Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) website amongst others. 'Wings of Care' is now an affiliate of the JCCV. We have also become a founding member of the Social Justice Committee of the JCCV, being involved in helping creating awareness of psychological issues that occur in the community. Forums are held on a regular basis in the area of Social Justice and Psychological Disorders. In the area of Social Justice and Mental Illness we provide institutional support in the form of referrals to legal aid, financial counselling, telephone financial advice and forensic care for rehabilitation. Dr Barie Forbes has recently written a Mental Health and Poverty discussion paper. A demographic survey is being planned for the community and we look forward to obtaining valuable information from this to add to our paper with results from this in the areas that concern us. One suggestion that was made in the paper was that a Community Chest be established to help clients who have been struggling to pay essential medical and domestic expenses including food. This is now operational. It also provides help for one-off bills for clients. A mental health policy is being formulated at this time also.

We are currently working on a project for the community that involves going to the Synagogues in our Melbourne Jewish community and suggesting ways that they can provide more social/financial help to people who need it. This project is being worked on through the Social Justice Committee. The mental health perspective of this is more proactive as it may prevent people living in poverty developing mental illness. It may also find people who have mental illness but have not been treated.

We have offered workshops with a Counsellor to examine the attitudes of family members i.e. children and spouses attitudes towards clients who have a mental illness. Some clients experience verbal and physical abuse. This is most distressing. By dealing with this issue through work-shopping and individual counselling we feel that clients become more capable of managing their illness better. By tackling the issues with children and spouses we feel that we are helping to stop mental illness being experienced in future generations.

 

For further information about Wings of Care or the Jewish Mental Health Network (Vic), Social Justice for Jewish people with mental illness: Social Justice for Jewish people with a psychological disorders, Social Justice for Jewish People who have a mental illness, and the Community Chest here are the contact details:

Phone 03 9527 4866 fax 03 9527 4488 or LorraineLevy@swiftdsl.com.au
Consumer Website: www.vicnet.net.au/~msupport
Email: MSupport@swiftdsl.com.au

Lorraine GRUMD Levy President Wings of Care (Kanfei Chesed) Inc Hon Sec JMH Network
Founding Member JCCV Social Justice Committee
Coordinator of the Community Chest
Professional referrals are welcome